Business
11:41, 03-May-2018
US frozen out as China goes elsewhere for soybean imports
["china"]
Share
Copied
One of the US’s biggest agricultural companies has claimed China is “deliberately not buying” American soybeans, with data showing Brazilian farmers are already taking advantage of Washington’s stance on trade.
Soren Schroder, the CEO of Wall Street-listed agribusiness Bunge Ltd, told Bloomberg “whatever they’re [Chinese importers] buying is non-US…They’re buying beans in Canada, in Brazil, mostly Brazil, but very deliberately not buying anything from the US.”
Several Chinese agricultural media websites back up the claim, with feedtrade.com.cn reporting that China has “completely stopped buying” American soybeans in the past two weeks, after shipments carrying 62,920 tons of US soybeans bound for China were turned around in the two-week-period ending April 19.
Customs data for March show US soybean exports to China fell by 27 percent, with Brazilian farmers stepping in to see their soybean exports to the Middle Kingdom jump by more than 30 percent to 2.33 million tons. Russian soybean exports to China also benefited, doubling to 150,000 tons.
As CGTN reported earlier in April, China reacted to US trade tariffs by putting 25 percent levies on American imports of 106 different goods and products, including soybeans.
While Chinese farmers told CGTN they didn’t expect the tariffs to have much impact, US soybean farmers and agricultural bodies have pleaded with US President Donald Trump to rethink his trade policies.
Read more on trade and soybeans:
A US trade delegation of high level officials including US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is set to arrive in Beijing on Thursday for talks with their Chinese counterparts on the trade relationship between the two countries.